When Frances Berwick started at Bravo in the 1990s, the cable channel was still positioning itself as a hub for “film and arts.” Berwick climbed the NBCUniversal ladder, eventually growing her domain to all of the company’s entertainment cable channels, including E!, Oxygen True Crime, SYFY, USA, and Universal Kids.  Her rise at NBCUniversal has coincided with cable’s decline. Some 46% of households have cut the cord, and many of the networks she once oversaw became a drag on parent company Comcast’s stock. So, the company amputated the afflicted limbs. All of those entertainment networks, along with news magnets like MSNBC and CNBC, will be overseen by a spinoff company, Versant, which is expected to be spun out by the end of 2025. But Bravo, the network that houses reality franchises like The Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules, and Top Chef, is staying in-house. That’s due in part to the fan-driven culture of its programming, which can prop up custom advertising, live events, and—the company hopes—their streamer Peacock. Berwick will lead the way: In January, she was named chair of Bravo and Peacock Unscripted, effectively merging the reality network with its streamer.  Bravo isn’t the perfect bet for NBCUniversal’s television future. Its cable presence is sagging like most of its Versant counterparts, with an expected decline of 5% in subscribers and 6.5% in ad sales in 2025, per market research firm Kagan. (Bravo declined to disclose their financials.) Bravo also remains tied up in some long-tailed legal battles from 2023’s Reality Reckoning, when claims of talent mistreatment threatened to topple the network.  But across conversations with network executives, reality stars, and fans, it’s clear that Bravo and Peacock have grown inseparable. Bravo-holics expect to watch their favorite programming cable-free, and Peacock relies on the backbone of Bravo’s low-churn, high-volume audience. Berwick herself calls Peacock “critical to the Bravo ecosystem,” and vice versa. NBCUniversal is betting that the relationship is strong enough to save Bravo from a looming cable onslaught.  Bravo and Peacock’s ‘Infinity Loop’ After almost five years, Peacock is still the least profitable contender in the streaming wars. While Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and Hulu have all reached positive profits, Peacock lost $215 million in the first quarter of 2025. Still, Peacock’s revenue rose 16% to $1.2 billion, and Comcast president Mike Cavanagh predicted “improved monetization, bigger scale and therefore declining losses over time.” NBCUniversal’s primary reason for keeping Bravo in-house is to ensure a loyal, engaged audience for Peacock. Dave Kaplan, NBCUniversal’s EVP of content analytics, calls Bravo “top of the pack” for habitual viewers across cable and streaming. Bravo viewers—which can number as many as 4 million per episode for the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH)—are a consistent, low-churn audience who are likely to maintain their subscriptions. Many are yearslong viewers, hopping from show to show and never tapping out. The only other audience that comes close is for procedurals like Law & Order.  Bravo’s sizable audience also means that Bravo shows dominate on Peacock. The streamer’s daily list of top 10 TV shows almost always has multiple Bravo programs among the ranks. The recent season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was a blowout success, averaging 2.7 million across platforms. Importantly, 55% of those 2.7 million viewers watched on Peacock.  “[Bravo’s] audience comes back more days in a month; when they do come they tend to watch more distinct titles,” Kaplan says. “They also spend more hours collectively consuming the content. Those three markers are significantly higher for the Bravo cohort than the Peacock average. That says to us that they are a really high-value cohort.” [Photo: Courtesy NBCUniversal] The Peacock audience is different from the cable one. They’re noticeably younger, and often more willing to invest in nascent programming. Kaplan points to Peacock as a primary reason for the success of Southern Hospitality, which has grown steadily over its three seasons and just hit 1.3 million average viewers. “For a lot of these new shows that are getting discovered for the first time and that don’t have those entrenched habits of how they’re being consumed on cable, we look to Peacock even more importantly to grow that audience,” he says.  Most importantly, Peacock and Bravo have entered a sort of crossover content partnership, one that will be expanded with Berwick’s new role. Bravo stars have broken out on Peacock Originals like The Traitors. When Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix started hosting Peacock’s Love Island USA last year, it became the summer’s most-watched unscripted streaming original at over 5 billion minutes, per Nielsen. Some shows make the jump from streaming to cable, as The Real Housewives of Miami did, and The McBee Dynasty: R